Plagiarism can really ruin your day — and your SEO.
When you outsource your content, plagiarism is a constant enemy. You’re putting the fate of your website’s domain authority in the hands of your writers, and you hope they take this responsibility as seriously as you do. Impactful copywriting has the potential to rocket your company to new heights, but plagiarized content can plummet your rankings.
Because we operate a content marketplace, everyone at Verblio has given the plagiarism problem a lot of thought and attention. We’ve dedicated time and resources to ensure our clients receive original content. Here’s how.
First, let’s define plagiarism
We don’t take plagiarism lightly, and neither should you. For starters, plagiarism has serious legal consequences, and let’s not forget the SEO ramifications of using plagiarized content. Your business is unique, and your copywriting should be, too.
But what really counts as plagiarism?
Merriam-Webster defines the transitive verb plagiarize as “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own.” This features one very important parenthetical. Not only does plagiarism encompass verbatim plagiarism where direct words are lifted from one article and put into another without proper citation, but it also alludes to paraphrasing plagiarism where ideas or structures are unfairly mirrored.
Why does this matter? Duplicate content (both verbatim and paraphrased) gets dinged by search engines. Pages will often all be downgraded in rankings because their informational impact is lessened by the existence of the duplicate works, and, in some cases, may not be indexed at all.
This inevitably impacts the site’s traffic as well as more nebulous things like E-A-T. (There’s nothing really authoritative or trustworthy about plagiarized content, is there?)
At Verblio, we take a comprehensive approach to combating plagiarism that looks at both verbatim carbon copies and uncited paraphrasing to ensure our customers receive only high-quality, original works.
3 ways Verblio stops plagiarism
It’s true that writing is challenging. It takes time and effort. Plagiarism, for some, is the easy way out. (And yes, we’ve seen the TikToks about letting AI writing tools write for you to generate passive income, but we’ve also seen why AI doesn’t really work like that.)
Trustworthy writers, however, aren’t just out to make a quick buck. Our platform is filled with brilliant writers looking forward to sharing their words with you!
We’ve designed three-part plagiarism detection and prevention strategy to supply our customers with writing you can trust.
1. Automated processes catch plagiarism early
Before a piece of content provided by Verblio writers ever reaches our customers, it is processed by the leading plagiarism checker in the industry. By comparing new documents to billions of web pages, this process identifies strings of words shared with copywriting that predates the content being scanned. You’ve likely heard of tools like these available for free (think: Grammarly’s free plagiarism checker).
A check like this is a necessary step in detecting stolen writing, but it isn’t the only step.
The trouble with many plagiarism detectors is that they look singularly for verbatim plagiarism, and often do so without any contextual analysis. It will flag any shared set of words that appears on another site, even if you’re writing about string cheese and not string theory.
Plagiarism is a complex issue that requires a complex solution.
In-line with Verblio’s commitment to removing plagiarism from our platform, we continue to experiment with cutting-edge tech to provide the most comprehensive plagiarism detection possible. This means we’re looking at both verbatim plagiarism and paraphrasing concerns to stop copy spinning and patch writing from entering our marketplace through enhanced analysis by pairing these tools with our own internal measures to detect plagiarized content.
Bottom line? Verblio uses a combination of industry standard and leading edge technology alongside our own proprietary systems to eliminate plagiarized copywriting.
2. Manual audits provide constant visibility
If our automated services aren’t enough to quell your concerns, don’t worry. We’re not done yet.
Our dedicated team maintains around the clock visibility to our writers’ submissions to track unusual behavior and low-quality content — both two massive red flags for plagiarism. Plus, our proprietary internal systems provide additional surveillance.
In the unlikely event that a customer has a concern about the quality of their received content, our team is readily available for customer support, writer management, and some good, old-fashioned sleuthing to get to the bottom of the situation.
3. Verblio’s one-strike policy against plagiarism
It’s not easy to become a Verblio writer.
You must go through a rigorous onboarding experience that includes passing a plagiarism exam and signing a pledge against plagiarism. If a writer submits a piece of copywriting with plagiarized components, they will be immediately removed from our marketplace.
Our no-tolerance approach allows customers to interact only with serious copywriters who are passionate about creating thought-provoking content.
Plagiarism sucks. Verblio doesn’t.
If you’re in the market for truly unique content at scale, you’re in the right place. (Or should we say the write place?) At Verblio, we’re committed to providing original content to our customers, and so is our team of over 3,000 thoroughly vetted contributors. When you’re ready for your site to make an impact, get in touch. This is what we do best.
